Microsoft to focus on small business, Government to grow India business

American major Microsoft will be focusing more on the small business segment and the government to grow its revenues in India. Anant Maheshwari, Microsoft India president mentioned that the small and medium business segment and the segments around digital India will be the clear areas of focus for the company in addition to all the work around enterprise and consumers that they have been doing. The overall information technology opportunity in the country is at $107 billion. He also stated that India is one of the top 14 priority regions for the company in addition to being a fast growing market.

Microsoft has two lakh enterprise customers in the country apart from 9,000 partners and also works with 5,000 startups. On the government front, it serves the center in addition to 29 states. Maheshwari stated that there are always challenges to do business in the world and India is no different. The government has recognized that over the last few years, with all the focus on the ease of doing business, there have been some improvements. The company sees GST as a massive opportunity for anyone who is trying to do a digital transition.

There are more than 8,000 people in the country who work out of nine offices in different cities. The staff is the largest in the country outside of US and also serves the global needs which include delivery, research and innovation. Maheshwari stated that the issue around the visa fees in not a concern for the company. Microsoft’s cloud customer base has grown in the last couple of months from India, which will result in a review of the infrastructure capabilities. However, it could not necessarily result in any new data centers here. The company plans to look at capacity planning by ramping upon the existing locations instead of looking into new locations. It competes with tech giants like Amazon and Google for cloud play.